Fourteen Arya
fourteen
Arya
Do I have spinach in my teeth?” Carley asked, curling back her lips to expose them.
Arya pointed at his own canines. Carley ran her tongue over the spot and got the little leaf out.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.” Arya showed his own teeth. “All good?”
Carley gave him a thumbs-up as she pulled open the door to the Philharmonic office.
Arya’s heart gave a little kick as he stepped inside.
He was glad he and Ben had cleared the air.
Better yet, Ben had agreed to be friends.
Now, instead of marching into a meeting with a guy he’d ghosted, he was floating into one with his teammate and friend.
Who he happened to have slept with. But that was in the past, and it was never happening again, and they could be friendly without anyone thinking something weird was going on.
Still, his chest buzzed with anticipation as he loaded up their latest renderings.
He was happy to see Ben again. He liked Ben.
Yeah, he wasn’t bad to look at—like, at all—but Ben was…
calming. Being around Ben felt like slowing down.
Like his brain wasn’t trying to do five things at once.
Like taking a deep breath and a long drink of water after a hard game of kickball.
Totally normal friend stuff.
“You good?” he asked as Carley fought with the TV mounted on the meeting room wall. It was supposed to connect easily to a plug built into the table, but of course, like every single meeting room TV Arya had encountered in his career, it didn’t work quite right.
Carley gave the TV a solid thunk with her palm. Arya’s iPad screen blipped and then connected.
“Perfect.”
“Percussive maintenance,” Carley said, blowing on her nails. “Works every time.”
She sat next to Arya, clacking her acrylics against the table.
Her latest manicure had tiny cherry blossoms painted on each nail.
Arya had done his own in soft pink, though his were just regular polish.
He kept his own nails short, round, and smooth.
Topping length, he liked to joke, though it wasn’t that much of a joke.
He did keep them short so he didn’t hurt someone while fingering them.
While Arya adjusted the angle on the rendering of the ballroom decor, the Philharmonic folks started filing in. Maurizio first, in another bow tie, talking with Brenda about someone in the office whose boyfriend may or may not have been cheating on them.
Arya grimaced. He might’ve been a slut, and he’d been with people into ethical nonmonogamy before, but cheating? No thank you please. It was hard not to think of his mom holding in tears after finding out her husband was “working late” with yet another pretty young assistant at the office.
Whatever faults Arya might have, he wasn’t disloyal.
The others gathered round the table, with Ben coming in last. He was dressed in another waffle shirt, a blue one, with the sleeves pushed up to show off his smooth forearms. Ben didn’t have a lot of body hair, other than his happy trail and pubes.
At least, Arya hadn’t noticed any when they were hooking up, and he hadn’t seen much leg hair during kickball.
Though he was sporting a few days’ stubble around his lips and chin, which was new.
It suited him. For a fleeting second Arya wondered what it would feel like to kiss Ben now, versus how it had felt all those weeks ago.
Except they were just friends, and not the kissing kind. So obviously he’d never know, and obviously he shouldn’t wonder either.
Still, he gave Ben a little smile and nod, and Ben’s eyes sparkled behind his slutty little glasses. He gave Arya a little finger waggle and took his seat.
After the ritual exchanging of pleasantries—Arya was Midwestern and Persian, so he came by it extremely honestly—Carley cleared her throat to remind Arya to keep on track.
“Right. So, here’s what we’ve done with the stage layout.
” This year, the ball’s centerpiece was a performance of Mahler’s Sixth, which famously featured a hammer.
But Martina, the Philharmonic’s eccentric conductor, had suggested (rather forcefully) that she wanted to use a blaster beam instead.
Granted, Martina was German, so everything she said sounded forceful, whether she meant it to or not. She had a very authoritative accent.
Arya had never heard of a blaster beam before.
It was essentially an enormous slide guitar, one that stretched halfway across the stage.
You played it by hitting the strings with a mallet and then sliding the case of an artillery shell (literally!) up and down the strings.
It made an unnerving, ass-puckering bass note.
Martina had made them watch clips from Star Trek: The Motion Picture to hear it in action on the soundtrack.
She’d even reached out to the instrument’s inventor—apparently it was patented—to make sure one would be available for the ball.
“We’ll be placing the blaster bang—” Carley said, gesturing at the screen.
“Beam,” Arya muttered as the Philharmonic folks tittered. Arya made the mistake of meeting Ben’s eyes and let out a little snort.
Carley shook out her hair. “Sorry, blaster beam, here.” She pointed to the upstage edge of the deck, closest to the ballroom wall. “We’ll have to shift your strings section this way, and the horns like so…”
Arya nodded along but let Carley do her thing.
She was a professional, after all, and at the end of the day, she would be the one actually executing their plans.
Arya was just here for big-picture stuff—working with the client, executing their vision, making sure the contract reflected a price point that could actually generate profit.
They needed that more than ever. Mitchell was acting like it wasn’t a disaster, losing their biggest client, but Arya had stayed awake most nights, dread creeping up his throat, until he either got up and made a tisane or furiously masturbated like a teenager in the hopes he’d roll over and fall asleep after.
(It only worked sometimes.)
While Carley moved on to the decor, which would be centered on elegant metal sculptures to complement the blaster beam, Arya studied the committee for their reactions.
Maurizio was nodding along enthusiastically; Brenda had her head cocked to the side, studying; the other two musicians were frowning, but not, Arya thought, out of disliking things, simply out of concentration.
Then there was Ben, who caught Arya looking. His eyebrow rose behind his slutty little glasses. Arya cocked an eyebrow back.
Ben’s lips quivered, threatening to curve into a smile, but he schooled himself, crossed his arms over his chest—that waffle shirt really did look amazing on him—and focused on the screen.
Arya gave a silent chuckle and followed along with Carley.
“That’s a good color on you,” Ben said as Arya was packing up his iPad.
“Hm?”
“Your nail polish. It’s nice.”
“Thanks.” Arya blew on his nails and buffed them against his lapel as he moved toward the door. “See you at kickball?”
“Actually…” Ben swallowed. “Could I talk to you for a second?”
Arya glanced out toward the hall, where Carley was assuring Maurizio that yes, they’d be using the nicer music stands, and yes, each musician would have their own separate microphone, and no, there wouldn’t be a jib in the room because there wouldn’t be any cameras, and no, it wasn’t in the budget and they’d have to negotiate an add-on.
Basically, she had it covered, so Arya turned back to Ben.
“Sure.”
“I could buy you a coffee?”
Arya’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Not here?”
“It’s not about work.”
About a thousand different scenarios ran through Arya’s mind—everything from needing restaurant recommendations to health issues to Ben getting back together with his shitty ex, which shouldn’t have pissed Arya off but did—but Ben stopped him before he could catastrophize.
“I kind of need to ask a favor.”
Arya only wondered if it was a sexual favor for half a second before he got his mind out of the gutter.
Okay, it was a full second, but he stopped himself.
“Lemme tell Carley. And I don’t drink caffeine, but I’ll do herbal tisanes.”
“Right.”
Arya led Ben a couple blocks south, down Wyandotte, to one of his favorite coffee shops. They had amazing breakfast burritos, even better cinnamon buns, and a great selection of herbal tisanes. Best of all, they were just far enough away from Bartle Hall not to get slammed during a convention.
“What’ll you have? My treat.” Ben pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his denim jacket.
He’d thrown it on over his waffle shirt as they walked.
Normally Arya thought denim jackets made men look like tools, but this one made Ben look cool, in the casual way of a man who doesn’t know just how hot he is.
Ben knew just how hot he was, though. And he knew that Arya knew. And they both knew that they were just friends now, so it was okay to admire but very much not okay for Arya to imagine peeling Ben back out of it.
Ben pushed his hair off his forehead, lips pursed as he studied Arya.
Arya realized he’d already forgotten Ben’s question.
“Sorry. Say again?”
Ben’s eyes crinkled up behind his slutty little glasses. He nodded toward their barista, gripping the iPad they took orders on. “What do you want to drink?”
“Oh. The Moroccan Mint. For here?”
Ben nodded and ordered an espresso and tonic—a combination Arya had never heard of, but the barista had, because they asked, “Indian or Mediterranean?”
“Mediterranean.”
Arya stared.
Ben looked back. “What?”
“Tonic and coffee?”
“Tonic and espresso. It’s good.”
Arya couldn’t imagine how. Tonic was supposed to go with gin. That was its whole purpose.
They hovered by the counter, took their drinks when they were ready, and situated themselves at a table in the quietest corner they could find. Ben gestured for Arya to pick his seat, so Arya took the chair. It wasn’t as comfortable as the bench against the wall, but he’d be less distracted.
“Thanks for this,” he said as Ben sat.